FALSE HOPE

SEVENTEEN STATES HAVE
ABOLISHED JLWOP
B. STATE REFORMS FOR YOUTH
IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE
SYSTEM—AND THEIR LIMITS
Although the recent Supreme Court decisions in Graham,
Miller, and Montgomery have not completely eradicated
juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) (a juvenile may still be
sentenced to life without parole but only after the court has
taken their age and maturity into account), these decisions
and state-led legislative and court developments now significantly
limit this punishment. Even before the Montgomery
decision, several state legislatures and courts either limited
or eliminated the number and type of situations where a
juvenile offender may receive a life without parole (LWOP)
sentence.
In the years leading up to the Graham and Miller decisions,
the use of juvenile life without parole was limited to a handful
of states. Although 34 states allow juvenile offenders to
be sentenced to life without parole, nine states accounted
for over 80 percent of all JLWOP sentences, and four—
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Louisiana, and California—have
been responsible for over 50 percent of JLWOP sentences. 201
Even among those four states, it is often only a handful of
counties responsible for issuing these extreme sentences. 202
In the wake of Miller, several states took significant steps to
limit or eliminate juvenile life without parole and to reform
sentencing practices for youth. Seventeen states and the
District of Columbia have abolished juvenile life without parole
completely (Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,
Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Montana,
Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia,
and Wyoming). 203 In Massachusetts and Iowa, the decision
to abolish JLWOP came from the state supreme courts. 204
In addition, the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth
notes that four additional states—California, Florida, New
Jersey, and New York—have eliminated JLWOP in most cases.
205 Meanwhile, seven states (Indiana, Maine, New Jersey,
New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Utah) currently
authorize JLWOP but have not moved to eradicate it from
their statutes; not one has a single prisoner serving that
sentence. 206
Since 2012, 21 states have amended their laws concerning
juveniles convicted of homicide to allow for resentencing,
as in Florida 207 and Washington state, 208 or for review by
the state parole board after a certain number of years. 209
However, in states that allow for review by a parole board,
that review and opportunity for release was rarely immediate.
To the contrary, in some states, eligibility for review for
these young offenders comes only after the individual has
spent decades incarcerated.
In Nevada and West Virginia, individuals convicted of
homicide offenses that they committed as juveniles are eligible
for parole review after they have served 15 or 20 years,
The United States is the only
country in the world that
sentences children under age
18 to life imprisonment without
the possibility of parole.
JUVENILE LIFERS IN
SOME STATES MUST SERVE
40YEARS
BEFORE
PAROLE
REVIEW
depending on the crime. 210 In Massachusetts, after a state
Supreme Court decision, some juvenile offenders serving
life without parole are now eligible for parole after serving
15 years; 211 subsequently, the Massachusetts Legislature
passed a law requiring others to serve a minimum of 20 to
30 years, depending on the nature of the crime, before they
are eligible for parole. 212
State courts in Nebraska, a state that retains non-mandatory
juvenile life without parole as a sentencing option, 213 and
Texas, which prohibits juvenile life without parole, 214 found
Miller to be retroactive in 2014, 215 but the state legislatures
required that those juvenile offenders now eligible for parole
(post-Miller) must serve a minimum of 40 years before they
are even reviewed by a parole board, let alone released. 216
Similarly, Colorado had already eliminated life without
parole for juveniles in 2006; however, the Legislature also
required that juveniles convicted as adults of a Class 1 felony
be sentenced to life with a mandatory 40 years before
the possibility of parole. 217 Fortunately, in 2016, Colorado
passed Senate Bill 16–181, which amended the statute to allow
juvenile lifers a potential earlier release, based on earned
time credits. A full list of states and the number of years a
person sentenced to life imprisonment must serve before
becoming eligible for parole is at Appendix A.
Certainly, the movement in the United States is to limit or
eliminate JLWOP in practice and on the books. The speed
and scale of related reforms is less certain. States that prohibited
JLWOP did not necessarily reform their sentencing
or parole practices; on the other hand, some of the (few)
TX
NB
CO
states that did reexamine their sentencing or parole practices
did not necessarily get rid of JLWOP.
Take Iowa and Texas as two examples.
In 2012, after the Miller decision, Iowa Governor Terry
Branstad commuted the sentences of the 38 individuals
then serving life without parole for offenses committed as
juveniles and required them to instead serve a mandatory
60-year sentence before they could be reviewed for parole. 218
The Iowa Supreme Court subsequently considered the case
of Jeffrey Ragland, who, at the age of 17, was charged with
and then convicted of first-degree murder. Mr. Ragland,
who was not the triggerman, had received a mandatory life
without parole sentence in 1986. The court found that Miller
was retroactive and negated not only the original mandatory
life without parole sentence but also the mandatory 60-year
sentence as a “practical equivalent to life without parole.” 219
Individuals like Mr. Ragland, the court explained, are entitled
to an individual sentencing hearing “tailored to account
in a meaningful way for the attributes of juveniles that are
distinct from adult conduct.” 220 Furthermore, recognizing
that the Miller mandate was more than a requirement to
have an additional procedure in place for young offenders,
the court stated, “At the core of all of this also lies the profound
sense of what a person loses by beginning to serve a
lifetime of incarceration as a youth.” 221
The Iowa Supreme Court has continued to extend the
constitutional requirement of individualized sentencing
for youthful offenders to other lengthy sentences in State
v. Pearson, which applied the Miller reasoning to a juvenile
32 AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FALSE HOPE: HOW PAROLE SYSTEMS FAIL YOUTH SERVING EXTREME SENTENCES
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